Gender Sensitive Disaster Management : A Toolkit for ... - Eldis
Gender Sensitive Disaster Management : A Toolkit for ... - Eldis
Gender Sensitive Disaster Management : A Toolkit for ... - Eldis
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Field Evidences<br />
Sex, disaggregated data from the<br />
Governmentreveals that of the people<br />
killed a disproportionately large<br />
number were women and children<br />
(Government of India, 2005). In Tamil<br />
Nadu, the worst affected state, three<br />
times more women died on an average.<br />
In the floods of West Bengal in 2000<br />
more women and children died than<br />
the men.<br />
In certain places, the death toll sex<br />
ratio is even more skewed. In<br />
Samiarpet, Cuddalore district, <strong>for</strong><br />
example, 12 times; in Chandrapadi<br />
Village, Nagai, 5 times; and in Silladi<br />
Nagar, a Muslim temporary settlement,<br />
4 times more women died than the<br />
men.<br />
Geetha, aged 25 years, could not save her two<br />
young children, aged 3 and 5, who slipped out<br />
of her arm in the huge waves. Those who tried<br />
to help her from drowning recollected her<br />
shouting to them that she did not want to live<br />
as she had not been able to save her own<br />
children. In the focus group discussion (FGD)<br />
the women who had heard her, reflected that<br />
Geetha might have lost the will <strong>for</strong> self-survival,<br />
as she may have felt that even if she had saved<br />
herself, she would have been accused by her<br />
family of being responsible <strong>for</strong> her childrens’<br />
deaths.<br />
Survival<br />
24<br />
Suresh, a 17-year-old boy, who lost his<br />
widowed mother, said that although he<br />
was not mentally prepared <strong>for</strong> marriage,<br />
the fear of managing a household caused<br />
him to marry a 16-year-old girl (wives<br />
are supposed to be younger than their<br />
husbands in an ideal marriage). He<br />
confesses, “I am not yet ready to take on<br />
the responsibilities of parenthood”, but<br />
his wife is already pregnant, and they<br />
are very depressed.<br />
During the Tsunami in Tamil Nadu, strong<br />
internalized values of nudity and shame<br />
prevented women from running to safety<br />
as their sarees had been removed by<br />
the sheer <strong>for</strong>ce of the waves. The women<br />
preferred to drown rather than come<br />
out of waters without their clothes. Since<br />
the incident many of them have started<br />
using inner wear as it will provide minimal<br />
cover in case they have to discard or<br />
raise their saree and run.
Change language